Biblical Imagery in Gerard Manley Hopkins's "God's Grandeur"

Skylar H. Burris, University of Virginia, BA '97; University of Texas at Brownsville, MA [skylar.burris@gte.net]

[This essay has been adapted with the permission of the author from her site. Copyright 1999, Skylar Hamilton Burris. This paper may not, in whole or in part, be reproduced or transmitted by any means whatsoever
without the prior written permission of the author. However, short quotations may be used if credit is given.] Follow for
Works Cited and text of poem.

s a Jesuit priest who had converted to Catholicism in the summer
of 1866, Gerard Manley Hopkins was no doubt saturated with the Bible (Bergonzi
34). Although in "Gods Grandeur" Hopkins does not use any specific
quotations from the Bible, he does employ images that evoke a variety of biblical verses
and scenes, all of which lend meaning to his poem. Hopkins "creates a powerful form
of typological allusion by abstracting the essence — the defining conceit, idea, or
structure — from individual scriptural types" (Landow, "Typological" 1).
Through its biblical imagery, the poem manages to conjure up, at various points, images of
the Creation, the Fall, Christs Agony and Crucifixion, mans continuing
sinfulness and rebellion, and the continuing presence and quiet work of the Holy Spirit.
These images combine to assure the reader that although the world may look bleak, man may
yet hope, because God, through the sacrifice of Christ and the descent of His Holy Spirit,
has overcome the world.

The opening line of "Gods Grandeur" is reminiscent both of the Creation
story and of some verses from the Book of Wisdom. The word "charged" leads one
to think of a spark or light, and so thoughts of the Creation, which began with a spark of
light, are not far off: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"
(Gen. 1.3). Yet this "charge" was not a one time occurrence; "[t]he world is
charged with the grandeur of God" (Hopkins 1). Or, in the words of Wisdom 1:7,
"The spirit of the Lord fills the world" (Boyle 25). This line of the poem also
sounds like Wisdom 17:20: "For the whole world shone with brilliant light . . ."
Nor does the similarity end with the first part of this biblical verse. The author of
Wisdom proceeds to tell us that the light "continued its works without interruption;
Over [the Egyptians] alone was spread oppressive night . . . yet they were to themselves
more burdensome than the darkness" (Wisd. 17.20-21). Here lies the essence of
Hopkinss poem. In lines five through eight, he will show us the "oppressive
night" that men bring upon themselves in their disregard for God and His creation.
But he will also show us, in the final sestet of his poem, that the light will nonetheless
continue to shine "without interruption." God will not cease working in the
world.

Indeed, His grandeur "will flame out, like shining from shook foil" (Hopkins
2). The word "flame" is often associated with Gods grandeur. In Daniel
7:9, the prophet describes Gods throne as being like "the fiery flame." In
Revelation, "the Son of God . . . hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire" (Rev.
2.18). In Exodus, God appears "unto [Moses] in a flame of fire out of the midst of a
bush" (Exod. 3.2; Boyle 31). After promising Samsons parents a son, the angel
of the Lord "ascended in the flame of the altar" (Judges 13.20). It is possible,
too, that this flame is meant to recall the "cloven tongues like as of fire"
that appeared above men on the day of Pentecost, when Gods grandeur was shown
through the descent of His Holy Spirit and in the speaking of tongues (Acts 2.1-4; Boyle
27-28).

The second half of this image is primarily a scientific one. It refers to gold leaf
foil as used to measure electrical charges in Faradays famous experiment (Boyle 26).
But there is also a biblical significance. Proverbs 4:18 tells us that "the path of
the just is as the shininglight, that shineth more and more unto the perfect
day." Just as light is reflected from gold foil, flashing out in multiplying rays, so
too does the Light of God, which leads men, continue to increase. This image in one way
ties into lines three and four of Hopkinss poem, in which Gods grandeur
"gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil / Crushed." Both images
demonstrate a process of increase in Gods grandeur. Gethsemane "means the
place of the olive-press" (Landow, "Typological" 6; Boyle 32).
It was there that Gods grandeur "gather[ed] to a greatness," for it was
there that Christ wrestled with doubt and fear and, gathering His strength, finally made
an irrevocable choice to glorify His Father: "not my will, but thine, be done"
(Luke 22.42).

The olive, in itself, is not particularly valuable. It can be eaten, but until it is
pressed, it has no further use. Once pressed into oil, however, it was used in biblical
times for cooking (1 Kings 17.12-13), lighting lamps (Exod. 27.20), anointing (Ps.
23.5), binding wounds (Luke 10.34), and in perfume (Luke 8.46). It was very valuable, and
the promised land was referred to as, among other things, a "land of oil olive"
(Deut. 8.8). This, then, is an apt metaphor for Gods grandeur as revealed through
Jesus Christ. Had Christ chosen, at that point of agony in the garden, not to
submit to the crucifixion, His entire life up to that point would have been (like the
uncrushed olive) of little value. His teachings and His miracles would probably have been
forgotten in time, and man would still have no adequate atonement for sin. But just as the
olive is crushed to reveal something costly and useful, so too did Christ chose to be
crushed to bring forth His priceless blood, which saves men (Landow,
"Typological" 6).

Accepting this role was no easy matter for Christ. Robert Boyle sees the "main
point of the [olive oil] image [as being] that something hidden, beautiful, and
wonderfully powerful is revealed" (31). But an at least equally important point is how
that hidden something is revealed. Boyle believes the olive oil image refers not to
"the gathering of ooze from the cracks of a press" but rather to gentle kneading
with a hand: "the beauty and power is hidden within the olive and can be brought out
without a press at all, e.g., by the pressure of the fingers or palms" (32). This
seems unlikely, however, given that at Gethsemane, Christ was not lightly pressed as if in
a palm, but was rather weighed down and crushed with great agony, sweating "as it
were great drops of blood" and begging that, if at all possible, His cup be taken
from Him (Luke 22.42-44; Boyle 32). Furthermore, it was at the oil-press that Christ, in
order to purchase "beauty and life," chose to submit to an even greater
"crushing": the beams of the bark that would grind Him down as He bore His cross
up the hill of Calvary, the pain that would come from being nailed through His hands and
feet, and the slow suffocation that would precede His death (Landow,
"Typological" 6).

George P. Landow acknowledges the significance of Christs suffering. He describes
one of Hopkinss "basic and generating conceit":

. . . higher beauty and higher victory can come forth only when something . . . is
subject to greater pressure and crushed or bruised . . . true beauty, true life, true
victory can only be achieved, as Christ has shown, by being bruised and crushed.
("Allusion" 1).

This conceit, Landow explains, is based upon the type of Genesis 3:15, which says:
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed;
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel." Christ is the one who
bruises Satans head, defeating the adversary through His own bruising, His
crucifixion.

To the casual reader, this image of the "ooze of oil / Crushed" may seem
unnecessarily crude. It contrasts sharply with the brilliant metaphor of flame and
shining. As Virginia Ellis writes, the image of "[s]haken goldfoil," once
properly understood, "vividly suggest[s] both the breadth and the sudden flashing
depth of Gods power" (129-30). The word "ooze," on the other hand,
generally possesses a disagreeable connotation. Yet this contrast must be deliberate. For
the Incarnation is, after all, a very crude thing. An omnipotent, omniscient God chose to
come down from the heavenly realm and take on the form of a mere man, subjecting Himself
to the limitations of humanity, in order that He might die a cruel death to save men who
were "yet sinners" (Rom. 5.8). The brilliance of lines one and two of
Hopkinss poem contrast with the crudeness of lines three and four to reveal
Gods amazing condescension, which is part of His grandeur.

Given this awesome condescension, and given the emotional and physical pain to which
Christ subjected Himself, Hopkins cries plaintively, "Why do men then now not reck
his rod?" (4). Most likely, this reference to "rod" will evoke in the
readers mind the image from Revelation in which Christ rules men "with a rod of
iron" (Rev. 19.15). But a more appropriate allusion may be found in Isaiah: "And
there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out
of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him" (11.1-2; emphasis
added). The "his" of this line of the poem must grammatically refer to the
"God" of line one. Gods rod, then, is Christ Himself. God gave up his rod,
His only Son, as a sacrifice for the very men who (we will soon see) fail both to perceive
and to honor Him in His creation. "And the very blame which [Hopkins] heaps on
man" in lines five through eight of the poem "is witness to his vivid
realization that man does not need to be [behaving] as he does, that the Fall has been
undone by the Second Adam" (Boyle 37). Indeed, the rod of iron that awaits these men
could become for them a rod of comfort. If they would but trust in Gods Rod, they
too, like the psalmist, might say, "Yea though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me" (Ps. 23.4).

But "[i]nstead of recognizing the authority of Gods majesty and grandeur in
nature, as St. Paul says he should," writes Boyle, ". . . man tramples it in his
contempt for and ignorance of his and its Creator" (35-6). This is made clear in line
five of the poem: "Generations have trod, have trod, have trod." The image
resembles Gods complaint in Ezekiel: "Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have
eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your
pastures?" (34.18). It is bad enough that man has disregarded the beauty of
Gods creation and failed to see His grandeur in it. But man has done worse than
ignore it, he has polluted it with his own sinful nature; he has brought darkness upon
himself in the very midst of Gods light.

"And all is seared with trade," writes Hopkins (6). Nothing has escaped
mans materialistic touch. Men, consumed by their own interests, have forgotten
Jamess warning:

Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue
there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the
morrow. For what is you life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
then vanisheth away. (Jas. 4.13-14)

This image of all being seared with trade conjures up a picture of the symbolic wicked
city of Babylon, where men trade in "gold, and silver, and precious stones . . .
horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men" (Rev. 18.12-13). Men have put
their trust in the produce of their own hands, caring nothing for the soul. Indeed, they
have chosen the beast over God, and have perhaps been seared not just with trade, but in
order to trade, for "no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name
of the beast, or the number of his name" (Rev. 13.17). Yet all of mans
monotonous, materialistic striving will come to nothing: "And . . . as many as trade
by sea, stood afar off . . . weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city,
wherein were made rich all that had ships . . . for in one hour is she made desolate"
(Rev. 17-19).

Men, laboring to amass useless wealth, have become "[b]leared, smeared with
toil" (Hopkins 6). This, argues Boyle, should not be taken merely as an indictment of
industrialism:

The situation reaches far more deeply into the nature of man . . . After the Fall man .
. . has to tread the world and to sweat . . . (Genesis, 3:17-19) . . . But Hopkins
emphasis is on the "all" of "all is seared with trade." And his
complaint is that the soil is not cleared here and there, but it is bare. He is not here
condemning man for the Fall, but for what he adds to the Fall from his own personal malice
and rebellion against God . . . (36)

This image of bare soil pertains not just to mans destruction of nature, but to
his spiritual bareness. In Christs parable of the sower, we learn that "A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it . . . And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and chocked it" (Luke 8.5-7). Nature is the vehicle of this metaphor, but mans spirit is the tenor. The soil is
bare just as mans soul is bare; he has borne no spiritual fruit. Either he has
rejected Gods good news, as if trampling it beneath his feet, or he has at first
received it gladly, but then been "chocked with the cares and riches and pleasures of
this life" (Luke 8.14).

Not only is the soil "bare now," but "nor can foot feel, being
shod" (Hopkins 7-8). Again we are reminded of the scene of the burning bush, in which
God tells Moses: "put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground" (Exod. 3.5; Boyle 31; Ellis 131). We see man "profaning
with shod feet what should be holy ground, not bare soil" (Boyle 31). In the Bible,
to be barefoot is to feel. In Mosess case, the feeling is reverence. In the case of
those defeated by war and lead away barefoot, the feeling is shame (Isa. 20.2-4). And in
the case of David ascending the Mount of Olivet to seek Gods guidance during the
rebellion of Absalom, the feeling is sorrow: "And David . . . wept as he went up, and
had his head covered, and he went barefoot" (2 Samuel 15.30). But in Hopkinss
poem, the men are shod, symbolizing the fact that they have become calloused, incapable of
spiritual feeling. If men are to be shod with anything, they should be "shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6.15).

The picture painted in lines five through eight of "Gods Grandeur"
leaves little apparent hope for man. But we have been forewarned in the first three lines
of the poem that Gods light has not been eclipsed by mans darkness, and that
His grandeur will yet "flame out." Hopkins does not abandon this promise, but
resumes it with full force in the final sestet of his poem. "And for all this,"
he avows, "nature is never spent" (9). The word "nature" may be taken
to apply, on three different levels, to physical nature (i.e. rocks, trees, animals,
etc.), human nature (i.e. the human race), and divine nature (i.e. God).

Physical nature, despite mans misuse of it, has not been spent, but continues to
be rejuvenated and to bare witness to its Creator. Indeed, God has promised peace in
nature, vowing that "[t]hey shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain"
(Isa. 11.6-9). Likewise, human nature is never spent, "[f]or God formed man to be
imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him" (Wisd. 2.23). And finally,
divine nature is never spent — that is, God is not exhausted, and He has not given up on
man. He will continue to labor, through the Holy Spirit, to bring men to repentance,
helping them to become "partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption
that is in the world through lust." (2 Pet. 1.4). Man has not be "spent";
he has not been sold to Satan. To the contrary, he has, in fact, been "bought with a
price"(1 Cor. 6.20).

This price, "Christs decent into human flesh," and His crucifixion, is
what makes the "freshness" of line ten of the poem "dearest" (Landow,
"Typological" 6). This "freshness" is probably meant to evoke and
consequently to defy the finality of the image of the wanton destruction of nature in
Wisdom. The word "freshness" is unique, being found nowhere in the Protestant
Bible. But in Wisdom, men, "thinking not aright" and believing their lives to be
short and mortal, say, "let us . . . use the freshness of creation avidly . . . Let
no meadow be free from our wantonness" (Wisd. 2.1-9). When interpreting the poem on
the level of physical nature, we should not underestimate "[t]he anguish that Hopkins
. . . felt because industrial man not only failed to respond to the forms of nature but in
fact seemed dedicated to their annihilation" (Bump 159). Hopkins wrote in one of his
journals:

The ashtree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I
heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that moment a great
pang and I wished to die and not see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more. (Bump
159)

Yet, despite the fact that man abuses nature for his transitory pleasure, he does not
have the power to destroy it altogether, for there still "lives the dearest freshness
deep down things" (Hopkins 10).

The "deep down" things signify not only the rejuvenation of nature, but the
rejuvenation of man through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christs death, while
ransoming sinners, also made it possible that the Holy Spirit might be sent into the world
(John 16.7). The symbolic dove, whose image we see in lines 13-14, expresses "the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost in creatures and above all in the souls of men" (Boyle
37). The Spirit dwells within all believers, but It will also continue Its efforts to
bring unbelievers to repentance, for God is "not willing that any should perish"
(2 Pet. 3.9). And although Christ was crushed down, emotionally and physically, He rose
again, and He will also come again.

"Only seemingly," writes Ellis, "is Gods energy fallen, crushed,
debased in this world" (128). For, even "though the last lights off the
black West went / Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs" (Hopkins 11-12).
Or, as 2 Samuel 23:4 prophesies, "he shall be as the light of the morning, when the
sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth
by clear shining after rain."Again, the vehicle of the metaphor is nature,
and its rejuvenation symbolizes Christs coming into the world. This image of morning
springing from darkness also draws our attention to the words of Isaiah: "Then shall
thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily"
(58.8). And again:

I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they
have not known:I will make darkness light before them, and crooked
things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. (Isaiah 42.16;
emphasis added)

The continuing presence of the Holy Spirit is proof of this promise. God continues to
work through the Holy Ghost, who "over the bent / World broods with warm breast and
with ah! bright wings" (Hopkins 13-14). The bent (crooked) world has not been
abandoned by God; it will be made straight, for it has been conquered by Him, and it is
still being protected by Him.

The bird imagery of line fourteen is drawn from the baptism of Jesus, when "he saw
the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him" (Matt. 3.17; Boyle
38). This dove imagery, in turn, is meant to recall Genesis, in which the Holy Spirit
apparently broods over the world: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters" (1.2; Boyle 38). The wing imagery possess a variety of positive connotations.
Wings are associated in the Bible with Gods healing (Mal. 4.2), with His protection
(Ruth 2.12; Ps. 17.8, 26.7, 57.1, 61.4, 63.7, 91.4; Matt. 23.37), with the strength that
He imparts to man (Isa. 40.31; Exod. 19.4), and with His conquest. This last association,
though not the most obvious, is perhaps the most crucial. When God is said to "spread
His wings over" a city, it means He has conquered it (Jer. 48.40). At the end of
"Gods Grandeur," God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, has spread His
"bright wings" over the "bent world," implying that He is not only
protecting, healing, and strengthening it, but that, despite the seeming triumph of
darkness, He has already conquered the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, who was crushed like an olive for this very purpose.

The world remains charged with the grandeur of God, "in spite of all mankind has
done and is doing to pollute and pervert and tread out its radiance" (Ellis 129).
God, through the constant presence of His Holy Spirit, continues to rejuvenate physical
nature as well as the human spirit; both are "being made over anew" (Wisd.
19.6). So, however dark and dreary this world may appear (and does appear in lines five
through eight of the poem), we must not surrender hope. For as Christ exhorted, "In
the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world"
(John 16.33).